Love Song
by arctique48
Summary: Severus-Lily. She made him feel like he was young again.
1. i: home again

**Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR. The lyrics in the sub-headings are from The Cure****'****s ****'****Love Song****'****.**

**AN: **I haven't written anything in SO long! This is an odd collection of drabble-type things. Currently looks like there'll be 15. I think they'll span his whole life when I'm done.

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**Love Song.**

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**i) **_You make me feel like I am home again._

It wasn't that he didn't like Slytherin, because he did; it was undoubtedly the best place for him. It wasn't that he didn't have friends, because he did; more than some could claim after their first week at school. It wasn't even that James Potter had done everything but stick a great big neon target to his back, though that didn't help matters.

It wasn't that he missed home cooking; the houseelves' food was better than anything he'd tasted from his mother. It wasn't that he wanted to see his parents again, or that he felt hurt that they hadn't written. It wasn't that Hogwarts was so big he got lost, or that the older children scared him. It wasn't even that his dorm was cold and dark with three other boys taking turns to make sure he never had a moment to himself, though sometimes that did bother him a little.

It wasn't that the work was hard, because he was doing well in all his subjects; in Defence Against the Dark Arts he'd got an outstanding for his first piece of homework! It wasn't that teachers were harsh, many were kinder than his own parents. It wasn't that classes bored him or that he wished he could try out for the quidditch team. It wasn't even that he'd been cornered by Peeves on the way out of Transfiguration and ended up losing house points for being late to Charms, though that had been embarrassing.

It wasn't that he wanted to be wearing his own clothes all the time, that he was sick of the prefects or that he wished they'd get rid of Dumbledore. It wasn't that he hated Gryffindors so much he could curse them, that he was found Ravenclaws boring or Hufflepuffs inane. It wasn't that he missed home, because he didn't. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy school, because he really did.

But there was one thing missing, he thought it as he wandered down to the dungeons once more, heading for his first potions lesson. One thing at home that he'd trade all of Hogwarts castle for. One thing that made Potter simultaneously more and less grating, that made him judge his new friends perhaps a little harshly. One thing- no, one person- that could make this whole school experience feel less like a surreal dream, less like a weekend away from life at home.

All their plans had been cut short when she ended up in another house. It had never crossed their minds that they wouldn't be together all the time. What was the point of going to the same school if they saw less of each other than they would have done at home?

He slowed his step slightly to let Avery get ahead, he couldn't be bothered sitting with him for a third hour running. It wasn't that he didn't like him, it was just-

He stopped dead in the door of the classroom.

"Severus!"

Lily.

Sitting at the exact desk he'd been meaning to head to. She'd saved him a seat.

He felt his face break into a smile.

And in a moment everything that itched at him slipped back into place. Suddenly didn't matter that Potter was laughing too loudly, that Avery was _still_ talking about the question he got right in Charms. It didn't matter that Slytherins were starting to cotton on to the fact that Snape was not a pureblood name, that he missed sitting out by the river under their tree, that he missed knowing that no matter how bad it got he could take sanctuary at her house for an hour or two.

It didn't matter.

In a moment, Hogwarts finally became home.

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_**If you've read it please review it.**_


	2. ii: whole again

**Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR. The lyrics in the sub-headings are from The Cure****'****s ****'****Love Song****'****.**

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**ii) **_You make me feel like I am whole again._

He was thirteen years old when his mother died.

He found out during the morning post. He didn't notice the owl at first, so unused to getting mail. It just sat in front of him, clacking its beak and refusing to move when he went to shoo it away. It took him quite a while to look up from his copy of the _Prophet_ long enough to actually note the name on the envelope.

'_Severus Snape__'__,_ it said.

He'd looked at Lily first, but she was engrossed in an argument with Black; if she'd gone to the effort of sending him something by owl he was quite sure she'd be waiting for his response. Bewildered, he ripped through the seal, not noting the crest stamped into the black wax.

He'd sat at the table, staring at the words within for the full duration of breakfast. The Slytherin table was all but empty by the time Slughorn appeared behind him, the look of sorrow oddly placed on his usually jovial face.

He'd been exempt from classes for the day and spent much of his time between Slughorn and Dumbledore's offices. They wanted to let him go home, talking of arrangements for him to be at the funeral. They said they would bring in someone from the team of wizards that were managing the situation to come and talk to him about what happened. But he knew what had happened. It was what had been close to happening for years and years and years. It was what he may have had the power to stop, were he not afraid of his father, in awe of his mother. It was something that he understood completely, and did not need any uniformed healer explaining to him.

He was more withdrawn than normal over the days following. He'd insisted on beginning lessons again the next day and he worked hard, steering clear of company whenever possible.

A week later he still hadn't seen Lily. He told himself he couldn't bear her pity.

But she found him eventually and from the way she was standing he could tell that she was furious.

"You don't understand!" he snapped, "She was a witch! She was a Prince! She was the only reason I was accepted in my house! She _was _my 'magical heritage'! Slytherin's not like Gryffindor, Lily!" his eyes were wide and desperate, "I _need_ parents. I need magic in my blood."

"Severus, magic doesn't come from your blood! With or without your parents, your magic is _yours_, It was no more powerful because your mother was alive. Look at Goyle! I could out-charm him any day and he's got generations over me! Just listen to yourself! You're being silly!"

_Silly._

He'd stared at her incredulously.

_Silly_?

"There's a war breaking out over this! You can't call it silly!"

"But it is! You know it is! You're no less of a wizard than you were last week. You've lost no claim to your magic!" She looked at his with huge eyes, like she was pleading with him to listen. "You'll always be an amazing wizard," she said, "You told me a thousand times that your father could never take that away from you, and now I'm telling _you_. No one, not your mother, not stupid Lucius Malfoy, not Mulciber and their silly genealogies, not even _you_ can take that away from you."

She kept his gaze, eyes brilliantly green in the golden glow of dust motes and old books.

"But-"

"No buts! And we're going to that funeral, I don't care what you say."

"I-"

"Now, shh. We're in a library, Severus. No talking."

"But-"

"Shhh!" she looked fit to giggle, and he couldn't blame her, his face must have been a picture.

But she _was _right, he realised later, back in Slytherin. Mulciber still talked to him, Malfoy offered his condolences without any hint of thinking less, he was still the same person he had been a week ago, no less of a wizard, no less of a Slytherin.

And they did go to the funeral, and as the coffin was lowered he actually cried. And Lily stood there with him the whole time. Just stood there holding his hand. And as they left the cemetery he realised that he didn't need his parents.

He was himself. He was a wizard and a Slytherin, and nothing and no one could take that away from him.

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_**If you've read it please review it!**_


	3. iii: young again

**Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR. The lyrics in the sub-headings are from The Cure****'****s ****'****Love Song****'****.**

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**iii) **_You make me feel like I am young again._

Young and foolish and back on his knees, hiding his hopes and fears and dreams. Hiding his identity, hiding his motives. The Dark Lord was back. The War was back. Azkaban was open and the Death Eaters were back. They fought for what they'd always fought for. The Dark Lord hadn't changed, Bellatrix hadn't changed, Malfoy and Avery and Nott, none of them had changed, but Severus? He felt like a shell, the same shell he'd been before, once brimming with bitterness and confusion and that teenage need to prove himself, now filled with a lifetime of regret and resentment.

They all hated Pettigrew. They hated the favour he'd gained in cowardice, they hated the gifts he was given, the praise he was showered with. They hated him for the rat he was, for the way he simpered, the way he mirrored their own grovelling in the most grotesque of ways, but most of all they hated him for starting again what they'd all dreamed to be over, for bringing back the Dark Lord, for re-establishing their slavery, for digging up the War they'd spent over a decade trying to recover from. But Severus felt perhaps a little more strongly than the others.

He felt twelve years old when the Dark Lord sent the rat to him, back in his old house at Spinner's End, barely five minutes walk from where she spent her childhood. The betrayer. And for what? What had he turned against her for?

They were damned men, the pair of them. Damned by the foolish choices of their youth. Damned by greed and bitterness and pride and all those stupid things they joined him for. They'd both turned their backs on her, between them they'd bought about her death. _His finest soldiers. _

It made him sick.

Pettigrew wore it like a gaudy jewel, the crowning achievement of his life. The destruction of something beautiful, the betrayal of his friends. But deep down Severus knew, he was no different to him. Beneath his foolish pride, Peter Pettigrew suffered as much as Severus Snape. He too was haunted by his past. On sleepless nights he'd here the rat scream apologies to long dead friends, but he felt no sympathy; he had known what he was doing.

He goes over it again and again and again. Countless times running over exactly what he'd thought and felt and done all those years ago. The smug satisfaction upon hearing that the Longbottom child was the one the Dark Lord needed. The shock, the fear, the utter confusion when his Lord jumped to a different, more terrifying conclusion. The horror at what he'd done, the fear, the desperation as he tried to fix it. The agony, the heartbreak as he failed.

Every moment from that day to this he had worked to claw himself back from that. He had saved the life of his greatest enemy's double again and again in the hopes of making it up to her (to make it up to himself). He'd sacrificed pride and conscience to go back into the ring, to take up the mark once more and fight for something he abhorred in the hopes that this time he'd hear a fateful secret and give it to the _right _side.

And when Pettigrew came to _his_ house and dared to act like they were _comrades_… He was twelve years old again, only with the power and licence to do exactly what he'd wished so long ago. He could not harm the Dark Lord's favourite, he could not give away his motives for wishing to do so, but he could at least treat the pathetic man like the vermin he was.

_Old rivalries_, Bellatrix would assume. But no; it went far deeper than that.

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_**If you've read it please review it!**_


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